- Hello, I am Madison Talley.

- Hi, I'm Mark Talley.

- And we own Tall Studio Architecture in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. I am a 2011, Mississippi State School of Architecture graduate.

- I'm a 2010 School of Architecture graduate.

- And we have owned our own firm here on the coast for about two years now. And what I think best prepared us for starting our careers and especially for starting our own firm, was our education at Mississippi State. I think that one of the things that we learned and that State does the best, is to really be yourself, express yourself and push those boundaries and you know, not be afraid of your creativity and just really go for it.

- And the thing that's great about the education is, the whole point, at least the first few years is to break the mold of whatever curriculum of education you had prior to that. So you get into the school and instead of drawing blueprints and learning how to be a professional architect, you're taught how to think for yourself and how to be a good steward to society and build things, and draw things and work with one another. And for us, we can say that what that allows you to do, when you get out of school, even though it becomes more technical in the end, is it's allowed us to really make our business what we want it to do.

- Definitely.

- And when we got out of school, we both worked for really large companies, multiple states and that was good for the time but we knew that our education prepared us to do our own thing and so that's what we love to do.

- And whenever we did get out of school, I would say that something that the faculty was so great about, is you didn't have to be an architect. That's not your only option. So I actually went to work as an installation artist for a large corporation for three years and that was just, beyond wonderful. I learned so much about new materials and techniques and Mark worked in really large architectural firms doing big buildings and just some really exciting things but we didn't feel hemmed in and like we were just one thing, you know? And so we were able to really push the limits and figure out who we were, what we wanted to be and I think that the faculty at State always encouraged that and just kind of told us look, you have a million options, you know, figure out what's gonna make you happy.

- And part of the faculty aspect is, we meet other companies from other schools and we go over to critique those students and we say to ourselves, quite often that the students and professionals that are after that, that come from Mississippi State, are most of the time prepared better, more forward thinking, hard working individuals and we would like to think that's not a biased opinion because we've seen students from all over the nation and different schools and by and large, the students that are produced are top notch in every category.

- For sure, and I think, you know, touching on the faculty aspect again, I mean, the faculty at State is just phenomenal. You know, that's one of the things that I know brought both of us to the school, was just looking at the faculty and you know, their qualifications and who State brings in to teach these students and to mold these minds, is just pretty unreal and they're always looking for somebody new and interesting, somebody you might not normally interact with, somebody who brings a new skill set to the table. So I think that that is just such a selling point for State and something that I think really benefited us then and it still benefits us now with those contacts that we've created and those friends that we've made.

- So if you're thinking about School of Architecture, we would both highly advise the School of Architecture at Mississippi State University. And if you have any questions about that, we would love to talk to you about it, cause we love the school and we hope you do too.

- So choose State.